A telegraph network 50 years before the telegraph – le systeme Chappe

A full half-century before Samuel Morse demonstrated his electric telegraph system in America, a long-distance and extremely effective communication network existed in France.

The network was developed by Claude Chappe (1763-1805), a scientist who realized that the human eye was an excellent device for discerning angles, even at long distances. He took that idea and developed into a long vertical pole that supported a horizontal beam.

At each end of the horizontal pole was a shorter pole. The two end poles could be put into seven different positions through a system of ropes and pullies. That allowed operators to develop 49 different signals.

These ponderous devices were placed on hilltops so they could be visible to each other through telescopes. Once an operator at one station received a signal, he would reproduce that signal so that the next station could also reproduce the signal.

The French revolutionary government authorized the first system in 1793- le systeme Chappe. The first line was from Paris to Lille. When Napoleon took power, he saw the value in the system immediately and expanded the network in all directions. At its most extensive, the network contained more than 500 stations and covered more than 3,000 miles. A message could go from Paris to the farthest French border in three to four hours — not the three to four days that it would take a horse rider.

When the electric telegraph came into use in the 1840s, the French continued to use their systeme Chappe for a while, but its slowness and limitations (mainly weather and costs) could not compete with the new technology. In the 1850s, it was abandoned and pretty much forgotten.

Chappe himself came to a bad end. In 1805 he committed suicide, said to be depressed over accusations that he had pilfered the idea of his system from others.

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Jim Stovall

Jim Stovall spent nearly 40 years teaching journalism, first at the University of Alabama (1978-2003), then at Emory and Henry College (2003-2006), and finally at the University of Tennessee (2006-2016). Stovall is the author of Writing for the Mass Media, a writing textbook that has been in print (and now in digital form) for more than 30 years. It was used in more than 500 colleges and universities around the world.

Jim Stovall

Now in retirement, Stovall lives on a small farm in East Tennessee and spends his time writing, woodworking, painting (watercolor) and drawing (pen and ink), gardening and a number of other activities.